


For Eye Surgery

by Mackem



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), The Sandman
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Hallucinations, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackem/pseuds/Mackem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I bought Absolute Sandman volume 3. And watched Sherlock Holmes. A lot. And...somehow...decided Sherlock and Delirium were perfect together. I don't know. I just don't know.</p>
    </blockquote>





	For Eye Surgery

**Author's Note:**

> I bought Absolute Sandman volume 3. And watched Sherlock Holmes. A lot. And...somehow...decided Sherlock and Delirium were perfect together. I don't know. I just don't know.

  
Watson is out.

He isn’t entirely sure where - he mentioned Mary, while he was pulling on his gloves, and Holmes had sensibly chosen to focus on the creak of leather rather than whatever details he had been expounding. He was spending an evening with Mary. He did not require additional data to know the evening would be undoubtedly far less stimulating than any Watson _could_ have spent at home.

No matter. Holmes has other means of entertaining himself, for awhile.

His pupils are blown wide. He knows this as he spent awhile examining his features in a small mirror, cracked into shards within its frame. The glass is grimy, fractured, and does not do him justice. Nevertheless he watches himself until his reflection is somebody else. He watches until the other person stumbles away in horror, and blinks.

He has not left the room; the room has left him. He knows he is still lain upon his old familiar sofa, feet propped up on Gladstone, and yet there is nothing else to be seen of his chambers. Nothing discernible by eye, certainly. He is almost sure he can hear his armchair plotting in menacing tones, but this he ignores. He does not feel like solving another case without Watson. It can wait.

His violin is in his hands which, he realises, have been playing of their own accord for some time now. He takes control, shakes the rebellion from his fingers until they are his again, and begins to play. He is not sure what he is playing. He thinks it is a recipe for black pudding.

“Write this down, old boy,” he orders Gladstone, who obliges with hieroglyphs. He becomes the last figure, then leads them away upon the wind which doesn’t blow around them. Most agreeable. He has always known better than many when privacy is required.

“This song is very pretty.” She appears suddenly, but has always been there. She is kneeling at his feet, her smile broad and beautiful and shattered. His heart beats for the first time in awhile, thrumming from his ears and wrapping tangled around the two of them. “I mean. I don’t like the words. Or the music. But um the colours are good. Is it for me?”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Um. I don’t think so.”

“Everything worthwhile,” Holmes assures her, looking at her and at the ceiling and through her and under himself. “Everything I do, certainly.”

“Oh. Good.” The melody becomes disjointed, cracked notes discordant and ugly painted in swirls around her realm. Some bounce back beautiful, after awhile. Some don’t. He realises eventually he has no instrument in his hands. The music is wonderful.

“Have you. Have you um found bad people?” She slides innocently up his body and lies atop him, curled on his chest. He breathes in her scent, tastes old leather, wraps an arm around her.

“Plenty. Some are even criminals.”

“Where’s that, um, I think he’s a man?”

“Mmm?” She blinks mismatched eyes and taps her fingers on his throat, over his thrumming pulse. Her beat is unsteady, never matching his; a constant counterpoint underscoring his heart. Lights fly from her fingernails, purple and green and colours that once existed and never existed and cannot be seen.

“You know. The one that makes you all woobly inside.  Well um not _all_ woobly. There’s your heart and liver and some bones and slime I think and that _thing_ it’s like a tunnel it’s all like a maze inside you.”

“Intestines. And Watson,” Holmes supplies languidly. He blinks again. His eyelashes feel like wings. “Watson is gone.”

“Forever?”

“Yes. And also for now.” He need not explain. She understands. There is logic within her, deep within, buried so close to her core that it defines her and she defines it. He laments that others are blind to this. What would sanity be, without madness? They are a two-sided coin, around whose edge he spins. “I am, alas, quite alone.”

“All alone?” She sounds so young, though he knows she is not. He smiles dreamily, enjoys the sound it makes, and kisses her dancing hair.

“Apart from you, dear lady. My apologies. Forgive me?”

“Forgive and forget um but not forget except I forget things lots. Lots of things. But not you. I wrote you down all special in my uh in my head. In all sparkles. Um but I can’t remember your name.”

“Whatever you wish to call me.” He yawns, surprised until it occurs to him he has not slept for several days, assuming his grip on time has not slipped further than he knows. He has been far too busy to sleep, although quite what he had been doing escapes him for the moment.

“You’re sleepy. You should go to sleep. Then you won’t be sleepy any more.” Uncertain fingers ghost over his forehead and guide his eyelids down. He acquiesces, dancing to her beat, as ever.

“Impeccable logic, my love. I fear I am expected in the realm of your dear brother.”

“I went there once twice three four maybe more.” He feels her move slim, trembling hands over his chest, palming over his jackrabbit heart, and sighs as she pushes inside. His arms wrap tight around her, stilling her shakes as she sinks within him. “I’m not leaving you, see? You’re not alone um Sherlock, that’s your name, I remembered.”

“You never forgot,” he murmurs. He feels warm, lightheaded - not safe, exactly, but protected nevertheless. They are their own, the two of them, and they are each other’s. He smiles as she fills him once more, his mind ordered logic lit with screaming fireworks, the smell of sweat and smoke and the taste of old leather throughout.

When Watson finds him his arms are clenched around his body, and he smiles in his sleep.


End file.
